End of the Party?

continued

Like Kailasapathy, Eaton believes the city was "late coming to the subject" of reducing employee benefit and pension costs, though unlike her, he acknowledges the city has gotten "significant concessions" from the unions. And like Kailasapathy, he's endorsed by Jane Lumm. "She shares my priorities," Eaton explains.

A council member since 2002, a staunch Hieftje ally, and a full-time customer service manager for a resume writing service, Margie Teall likes that the current budget "allows us to keep our firefighters and start adding police officers." She dislikes that there isn't "more funding for human services, though we're probably the only city in Michigan that still funds human services at all."

Like the other candidates, Teall would like to have more police officers. When asked why, in light of the huge decline in crime, she alone acknowledges that "the numbers would suggest we don't" need to expand the force. But, she adds, "the issue really isn't about the numbers. It's about the perception. Across the country, people think there's more crime, even though crime is down across the country."

Like Derezinski and Hieftje, Teall supports a new transit center. "It won't necessarily be on Fuller Road" she says of the controversial original site, on parkland currently leased to the U-M as a parking lot. "The Federal Railroad Association will tell us where to put it. The important thing is that we have a chance to have a world-class transit center where the city puts in a fraction of the cost: $2.5 million of a $30 million cost."